San Diego in line to ban plastic bags

San Diego is considering a plastic bag ban ordinance similar to others around the state, including laws in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The ban would prohibit grocery stores from distributing single-use plastic bags, and would require businesses to charge ten cents per paper bag. But small grocery stores, like A-Mart in downtown SD, say their customers can't afford ten cents, and it wouldn't be practical for them to bring reusable bags to shop.

San Diego is considering a plastic bag ban ordinance similar to others around the state, including laws in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The ban would prohibit grocery stores from distributing single-use plastic bags, and would require businesses to charge ten cents per paper bag. But small grocery stores, like A-Mart in downtown SD, say their customers can't afford ten cents, and it wouldn't be practical for them to bring reusable bags to shop.

As part of a growing push to cut litter and conserve landfill space, San Diego could join some of California’s biggest cities in outlawing plastic checkout bags over the next year.

The proposed bag ban would eliminate disposable plastic bags from San Diego retail stores such as markets and pharmacies, encourage shoppers to bring reusable totes and require businesses to charge 10 cents for each paper bag.

“The objective is to wean ourselves from temporary bags,” said Councilwoman Sherri Lightner, who shepherded the ordinance through the Rules and Economic Development Committee, which approved the draft rule last month.

The ban could eliminate 348 million single-use plastic bags from San Diego each year, the Equinox Center estimated in a report that coincided with the committee vote. It could save the city $160,000 per year in bag cleanup costs, preserve precious space at Miramar Landfill and keep plastics out of the ocean, the report concluded.

But the proposed rule has sparked opposition from some retailers who say its provisions would hurt mom-and-pop markets and their customers.

“I think one thing people aren’t talking about is that that law as written will be very hard on working-class families, and will affect the working poor particularly,” said Mark Arabo, president and CEO of the San Diego-based Neighborhood Market Association, which represents small markets in California, Arizona and Nevada.

“In essence, it’s a bag tax. We’re in the most underserved parts of the city, and our customers can’t afford to pay a dollar or two more for bags every time they shop.”

While the rule would be a sea change for San Diego, it’s modeled after a host of existing laws.

More than 80 California cities — including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and others — have adopted similar measures in recent years, outlawing the filmy plastic sacks from their shops and supermarkets.

Several recent bills that aimed to expand the ban statewide died in the Legislature. After those failed this year, San Diego officials decided it was time to take local action, Lightner said.

“You know, we’re not breaking new ground now, and it’s about time we got up to speed with other jurisdictions,” she said.

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Plastic bags have come under scrutiny following research showing that they accumulate in the ocean, choking or entangling marine mammals, birds, sea turtles and fish. Recent reports have highlighted the North Pacific Gyre, where high concentrations of trash swirl in ocean currents.

Scientists are studying how plastic debris affects marine ecosystems, and whether the pollutants the animals ingest make their way up the food chain to humans.

Californians use an estimated 14 billion plastic bags each year, according to an analysis of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data by the conservation group Californians Against Waste, said its policy associate Sue Vang. Although the bags are recyclable, only about 5 percent make it to recycling plants, the Equinox Center found. In San Diego, Lightner said, only 3 percent of bags are recycled.

“It’s our understanding that over 460 million plastic bags from San Diego are disposed in landfills annually,” said interim Mayor Todd Gloria. “We have a necessity to keep our landfill open as long as possible.”

Bag bans aim to cut plastic bag use and introduce greener alternatives, but there are some catches.

The Equinox Center study examined existing bag bans in the cities of San Jose and Santa Monica, as well as one in Los Angeles County. It found that the bans reduce energy use, greenhouse-gas emissions and solid waste, but also increased water use because of the need to wash reusable bags.

Prior to the bans, disposable plastic bags made up three-quarters of checkout bags used in those areas. After the bans, that dropped to zero, the Equinox Center reported. However, paper bag use jumped from 3 percent to 16 percent, as customers switched from plastic to paper.

That’s a problem for environmental officials who seek to cut waste by minimizing use of all types of disposable bags. And it’s the reason various cities have adopted the charge for each paper bag. Although many merchants are willing to offer paper bags at no cost, waste experts have said a fee would discourage some customers from using throwaway bags at all.

That’s unfair to the working poor clients of many convenience shops and small markets, Arabo said. While the draft ordinance makes exemptions for grocery shoppers on public assistance, people scraping by on low incomes without food aid don’t get that break, he said.

Many customers can’t afford to stock up on reusable bags, Arabo said. Some use public transportation, so they can’t stash them in a car for unplanned purchases like other shoppers do. And the 10-cent paper bag charge, while nominal, could add up to a financial burden for those families, he said.

While the draft law makes noncompliance with the 10-cent fee a misdemeanor offense, Arabo said he’s willing to risk that penalty.

“Our stores will not charge, period,” he said. “If they want to ban plastics, it’s one thing. But don’t charge 10 cents per (paper) bag.”

And although the current draft version of San Diego’s proposed ordinance doesn’t spell it out, officials said the language would allow large non-food retailers to continue to distribute plastic bags — which Arabo said is another inequity.

Cathy Brown, general manager of plastic bag maker Crown Poly in Huntington Park, said there are other hidden downsides to bans on plastic bags.

Many disposable plastic bags are reused for household trash or pet waste, she said. Eliminating free bags at markets would just encourage customers to buy plastic bags for those purposes, undermining the goal of a net reduction in landfill waste, she said.

“It’s not a single-use bag,” Brown said. “People constantly reuse them for other purposes. When people don’t talk about that, it’s frustrating.”

Lani Lutar, executive director of the Equinox Center, said even plastic bags that are reused once or twice still end up in landfills. And the ordinance would allow continued use of other plastic sacks for carrying produce, bread and pharmaceuticals, so those could still double as waste disposal bags, she said.

San Diego officials said city staff would conduct an environmental review of the proposed ban and return to the City Council with the final wording within a few months to a year.

“In the whole of human existence, we’ve had plastic bags for a couple decades,” Gloria said. “We’ve been able to succeed without them before, we’ll be able to succeed again.”